A Song of Stars and Shadows - Choi Soobin

Chapter Two: Shadows of the Unknown

I had always felt it—a hollow ache, like a song that lingered just beyond memory, something left unsung. My life on the mainland was ordinary to everyone else, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was meant for something more, something greater, something unknown. 

Each morning, I was awaken by the sound of the bustling streets below the window. I loved that. The busy city of London was waiting for me as much as I was waiting to take more from it, but if I kept daydreaming then I will be late to it. I  helped my mother run the little bookshop we owned, so yes, my livelihood is made up of dusty novels and forgotten tales. There is something about being found in the solace among the rows of books, their pages offering worlds so I could escape into the. But even those stories didn't fill the quiet void in my heart, that was roaring every single day. 

My mother was a warm, gentle woman with a spirit softened by hardship. I always felt like she had to go through a lot of circumstances, but she never talks about them. Nor she wanted to talk about the past, which sometimes made me wonder about what is our story, what we have overcome. It is not that I that curious, but one have the right to now her roots and there might be my answer. But the hardest of them all was asking about the man who gave me life. Whenever I asked about my father my mother's expression would shift to something unreadable—painful, distant. He was a mystery, a shadow who lingered in whispers and silences.

"Your father was... complicated," my mother would say, a sigh softening the words. "He loved you very much." And then the subject would change. I had learned not to press. It was as though my mother had buried something too fragile to dig up, and I had always respected that. But that didn't stop me from wondering.

In her quieter moments, especially on clear nights when the stars felt like they were drawing my gaze upward, I would lie awake and imagine stories of a father who might have loved me. Not that I do it all the time, but is nice to think there was someone who fulfilled that role. I'd picture a man with a proud smile, rough hands, and a fierce spirit. But in my dreams, his face was always blurred, like the details of a memory I couldn't quite grasp. The emptiness gnawed. I was left with a sense of unfinished beginnings and the unsettling thought that a part of me was missing.

But as I mentioned before, once you meet someone who can change the way you see your life there is no turning point. And this is the story of how, one rainy afternoon, my favorite type of afternoons,  I met the person I would regret to meet in some time from now. Everything started there, at the bookstore, when the guy in the poetry section was looking for a specific book, but having trouble in the search. He had dark eyes that seemed to see more than they let on, and there was something both hesitant and curious in his gaze as he ran his fingers along the spines of old, leather-bound volumes. His presence drew her attention in a way that was inexplicable, magnetic.

Without thinking, I approached him. "Lost in the world of dusty pages, are we?" I teased, leaning against the shelf beside him.

He looked up, a bit surprised, then chuckled softly. "Guilty as charged." His eyes sparkled with a quiet humor, and something about that made me pause. "There's something about old books. They carry pieces of places we'll never get to see," he continued, almost as if he were speaking to himself.

I raised an eyebrow. "Or maybe they're just a reminder that we're stuck in one place." I tried to keep my tone light, but the words came out sharper than I intended. There was an edge to my own longing I couldn't quite hide.

He tilted his head, studying me for a moment. "Maybe they're both," he said, his voice gentle. "A window and a prison, all at once."

I let out a small laugh, one that felt too raw, too real. "Well, aren't you poetic," I quipped, crossing my arms as if to shield myself from the truth of his words. "Do you always think this deeply, or am I just lucky?"

He grinned, a bit sheepish. "Only when it's raining and I'm standing in a bookshop with a mysterious girl who seems to know what I'm talking about."

"Mysterious?" I scoffed, pretending to be offended. "I'm about as mysterious as an open book."

"Oh, I doubt that," he said, eyes narrowing playfully. "I think there's a lot more to you than meets the eye."

I felt my cheeks warm, and quickly turned to the shelf to hide it. "Well, don't go getting any ideas," I mumbled, feeling oddly self-conscious under his gaze. "I'm just a girl with an unhealthy attachment to old stories and rainy afternoons."

"So we're not that different, then," he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.

Our eyes met, and for a second, it felt like he was seeing right through me, right into that hollow part I'd never been able to fill. I tried to look away, to laugh it off, but the words spilled out before I could stop them.

"Do you ever feel like... like you're waiting for something? Like there's this ache, this emptiness, and you don't even know what it's for?" I hadn't meant to say it, hadn't meant to reveal that part of myself, but it was out there now, hovering between us.

He nodded, his gaze softening. "Yeah. All the time," he replied quietly, and in that moment, I knew he understood. I didn't know why or how, but he did.

We fell into silence, the rain tapping softly against the window, the dim light casting shadows around us. For once, I didn't mind the silence. It felt like he was a part of it, filling the empty spaces in ways I hadn't thought possible.

"So... do I get to know your name?" he finally asked, breaking the stillness with a small smile.

"Adalune," I replied, feeling the syllables roll off my tongue like a secret I rarely shared. No one used my full name unless it was something official, and it felt strange and exposed to say it now, especially to a stranger.

"Adalune..." He repeated it slowly, as if tasting each sound, and then, a small smile crept onto his face. "You don't mind if I call you Luna, do you?"

"Luna?" I echoed, a bit taken aback. No one had ever shortened my name like that. It was always "Addie" or the full, serious "Adalune." But "Luna" felt... different. It was softer, like a quiet secret, something only he could see.

He shrugged, a hint of mischief in his eyes. "It suits you. Like the moon—mysterious, always watching from afar but still part of the night sky. Luna."

I tried to brush it off with a smirk, but the nickname lodged itself in my heart, unexpected and yet strangely perfect. "Alright, Luna it is, then," I said, trying to sound casual, even though the name warmed me in a way I couldn't quite explain.

We fell into a comfortable silence as the rain continued to patter against the windows, the world around us fading into a quiet, timeless moment. I barely knew him, but there was something about the way he looked at me, something that made me feel like he'd glimpsed a part of me even I didn't fully understand.

"So, do I get to know your name, or do I have to come up with one for you too?" I teased, attempting to regain some of my composure.

"It's Soobin," he replied, smiling softly.

"Soobin," I repeated, testing the name on my tongue. There was a gentle strength in it, something that felt steady, grounded. I liked the way it sounded. "Nice to meet you, Soobin."

The rain kept falling outside, a soft rhythm against the glass, but inside the shop, everything felt still. As I stood there, with this strange boy who'd just given me a new name, the ache in my heart softened, just a little. Like he'd unknowingly filled a piece of that empty space.

In that moment, I didn't know what bound us or why our meeting felt significant. But as he looked at me with those dark, knowing eyes, I had the distinct feeling that meeting Soobin was the beginning of something I'd been waiting for, without even knowing it.